


Tide (over)

by lejf



Series: the beach and the– [2]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: + i have a super secret surprise in here what could it be?????, Double the Fun, M/M, Soulmates, also a college (or uni??) AU, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 17:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8722564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lejf/pseuds/lejf
Summary: Jared and Jensen are soulmates who meet in every world. Primarily set in a college and superhero AU, where Jared meets Jensen who claims he doesn’t remember a thing and that he’s in love with someone else.[This is the main part of my Christmas gift!]





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brokenhighways](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenhighways/gifts).



> This gift is for brokenhighways! There's actually a part that comes before this as a prologue of sorts that sets up the "meet in every world" thing. It's not a mandatory read to understand what's happening in this one, though.
> 
> I'm also infinitely grateful to tipsy-kitty for beta-ing this one for me! She whipped through it with amazing efficiency and I think I still have stars in my eyes.

When Jared’s superpowers manifest, it’s because a little girl is standing in the middle of the road and a car is hurtling towards her at sixty miles per hour. Her brother explodes from the house across the street in a blur, shouting, and barrels to a stop in front of the car. Just as Jared cries out, the vehicle grinds to a stop against the brother’s bare hands, veins flaring under his skin at the effort.

Jared is left standing on the side. The brother is blabbering at an insane rate — he’s so glad his flimsy strength powers saved her, oh god, oh god — and that day, at the age of twelve, Jared shakes his head in relief and keep walking on, oblivious to the fact that he’s done anything at all.

So he really should be excused for reeling in surprise six years later when the inspector says he’s pinged the machine for significant powers. “Ma’am,” he says, pushing back his bangs in order to turn the full power of his earnest gaze (which, come to think of it, _is_ probably his real power) on the woman. “I– I really don’t think that I’ve got any sort of ability.” He’ll be taken away from his family, if not physically then metaphorically _._

It’s bright, sunny out; the other kids in the line behind him are looking at him and muttering. His heart sinks. By the end of the day, everyone in town will know. “The machine doesn’t malfunction,” she says, and yeah, okay, he _knows_ that it doesn’t. There’s a genetic anomaly that’s common in all Supers that allows them to exert their will either internally or externally. But, of course, because the nature of superpowers is obscure and, who knows, there might be outliers, she says, “Though if you’d like a confirmation...”

“Yes,” he rushes out. He’s never shown any signs! The usual powers are these: physical enhancements of strength, resistance, speed, the senses; or external manipulation as telekinesis. The weirdest superpower anyone’s ever heard of was one guy’s propensity to make miniature doors in any surface he wanted. (Which was actually pretty formidable, because if he got angry he could make a door in your face and open it up and wrench out your brain.) And superpowers out of that list are practically unheard of. He’s never shown to have anything like that. He can’t be some sort of-- _unique_ Super.

She — she’s an example of a unique one — touches a finger to his temple and her hand glows green. “Sorry kid,” she says when his lungs shrivel up in his chest and he forgets how to breathe. They’re gonna take him to the Supers’ school. He thought he was gonna grow up and study for the SATs and apply to a university out of state, but. But.

He stands aside for the rest of the ceremony, looking at his hands as if looking for his power in them. He can’t remember any sort of extraordinary things he’s ever done. It’s inconsolable. He is– he’s _not_ a Super. Jared isn’t a Super. He doesn’t even know much about Supers! How is he supposed to live like one? He doesn’t know anything about the famous figures, the infamous villains... It’s a whole other world.

The other kid that also tested significantly positive is bubbling next to him, saying that she’s been waiting to go to the Academy since she realised her powers, that she’d been sure she’d get in ever since she was five, or something. She tries to ask him questions about what he is, but his clear discomfort on the topic turns her away.

A week later he’s being bustled around the university and sat down with a bored-looking man asking him about his powers since he ticked the ‘Other’ box and wrote ‘Unsure’ in his survey. His bags are sitting unpacked still in the main office. His family had given him a hearty little goodbye with a few tearful farewells and lots of speculation. Honestly, he thinks they’re half-expecting him to come back when the university realises he’s got no powers at all.

“Jared Padalecki,” the man says slowly, looking over a pair of thick-framed glasses. He probably says it slowly because Jared’s last name is such a mouthful. “You’ve indicated here that you are ‘unsure’ of your powers.” The man looks at him, inviting him to elaborate.

“Yes, sir,” Jared replies. “I’ve got absolutely no idea at all. I’m so sorry.”

“Well,” the papers on the desk are pushed to one side, ”we’ll see if we can request an audience with the Eye. If he refuses to see you —which he may do, he’s unpredictable at best— we’ll run a few other tests. All right?”

Jared nods hesitantly. The man stands and leads him out of the room, down hallways adorned with elaborate carvings, through thick wooden double doors that lead them under a canopy held up by brick patterned pillars and archways, up countless flights of neatly maintained stairs, past huge spanning windows, and all around them Jared can see evidence of superpowers. Occasionally students walk by with their bag and papers floating around them, or are playing an unfollowable game of high-speed baseball, or are looking down at a petri dish with just their naked eye for something Jared can’t see.

The entire place has the design of brick and red roofs — a testament to its age, complete with intricate spirals and swirls — and some parts imitate a castle with huge winding turrets. But inside the halls, the floors are lushly carpeted and homey. Jared soaks in the architecture while the man occasionally stops to talk with other authoritative-looking figures.

He feels obscenely normal, even though he looks pretty damn similar in run-down sneakers and a casual shirt. He just– he can’t _do_ that sort of stuff.

Soon there are fewer students in the corridors and the doors they pass by no longer have windows in them, and he’s fairly sure they aren’t used as classrooms at all. The walls become more enforced than friendly and the man escorting him has to start using keys. They begin to climb a spiral staircase, lights lining the walls in fancy metal holders, spaced out against the brick.

Jared tells himself that it’s because hot air rises, or because he’s physically exerting himself, but either way, it seems to be getting warmer, and if he listens closely he swears he hears more than two sets of steps.

He stops counting by the fiftieth stair. The lack of windows is strange, disorientating, and Jared thinks that, surely, they can’t be that high up. Also, why have such a tall tower for what will inevitably just be one small room? It seems like kind of a waste of space to him.

The man in front of him stops so abruptly that Jared nearly crashes into his back. There’s a door — red wood curled with silver, and a funny circle marking in the center. He tilts his head to look at it. He supposes it could look like an eye if you were being creative, but it’s probably just the result of some designer who’d been paid too little and was feeling too lazy.

The man knocks, waits patiently for a moment, then carefully turns the knob and gestures Jared to enter.

Light floods in. Windows look all ways. Jared thinks, distantly, something about journeying up through the dark to the light, but he’s too busy squinting against the suddenness of the brightness streaming in uninhibited. Aside from a water basin in the centre, the room is empty, the walls replaced by windows that reach from angular ceiling to floor. They really are quite high up; he can see courtyards below, the figures not more than meaningless blobs.

He looks back when the door slams shut and jumps nearly a foot in the air. There are about five men and women behind him leaning against the walls, looking unconcerned, but he’s aware what they’re for. Security. Evidently Jared is about to visit a particularly unique Super, and he could easily be a villain in disguise.

For an instant water catches light like glass. Jared snaps to attention and moves to stand in front of the circular water basin, peering down into it. Is he supposed to see something? It _is_ a strange sort of water. It’s much too blue. The blue crowds in from the sides and he can’t see through it further than a few centimetres.

There’s something in there. He’s about to lean in further when suddenly something emerges from the murk, slimy and slick and smooth like an eel’s skin and Jared falls back with a shout.

It hurtles upwards and around the room, long sinuous body coiling in a lasso — a tornado made of flesh, but halts as abruptly as it had moved. The head is eerily human, a dead face imposed over a grotesque snake, eyes flickering through every shade of the spectrum, jaw sliding from side to side, lips melted back to reveal blackened teeth. The skin at the neck melts from the deep mottled green of its serpentine body to the pale white of a corpse.

Jared is aware that it’s not going to hurt him. He swears he’s not afraid, but there’s no other explanation for the way his limbs lock up like someone’s tightly turned the key.

It says, in a voice like stones grinding together, “One curve, two lines.” The people behind Jared stir as the lipless mouth pulls into a smile. The next word comes in a drawn-out hiss, a tendril of mist. “Maxwell.... I know I will be watching you.”

They immediately fall silent. As suddenly as it came, like pulling the plug on a sink, it plunges into the water, liquid splattering all across the room and _sticking_ unnaturally as the whole length of it disappears into the dimensionless depths.

Someone behind Jared begins to laugh and shatters the veil that had fallen over him.

Jared turns, half affronted, but he’s reeling too much from the otherworldly encounter to say anything. Water runs upwards to the peak of the ceiling to drip back into the basin.

“Who knew the Eye was a joker?” someone else says, a woman with bright green hair, and it’s like a punch to the gut. They’re laughing at him. The men and women begin to file out, making for the door. Jared stumbles forwards.

“Hey,” he says, and immediately cringes slightly as a few eyes turn to him.

The man who initially led him up the stairwell walks up to him, looking nonchalant and reciting lines that sound like they’re memorised. “You’ll be situated in room 3 in the Outlier’s wing,” he says, “and will attend our first year’s External’s course alongside a few Outlier classes that are catered to–”

“Wait, wait–” Jared says, throwing a hurried glance at the last of the Supers exiting the room. “What– what _am_ I?”

“I’m afraid the Eye’s placed a confidentiality clause on you,” the man says. When Jared looks on in confusion, he tips his head. “Come, let us walk.” He gestures to the open door and Jared follows him unsteadily, not sure if he should feel offended or confused or just exasperated with the whole ordeal. He looks back just before the door closes, but the room is still filled with only light, and the pool is still.

Again they enter the stairwell of shadows and close walls. “You’ll hear this during the formal welcome tomorrow, but it bears repeating. Every mind we educate in this academy, every talent and power, no matter how unique nor mundane, has immense potential.” Their footsteps echo down the wooden stairwell, like stones dropped down into a cavern. “We’ve trained many of the greatest super-heroes in our time and many of the greatest villains.”

The words pause for a moment. Jared watches the steps of the man in front of him.

“I’m sure you’re aware of the cases of Lightning and Mist. The general public is instilled with hatred and fear of _us_ , having raised such villains, yet still we refuse to close our doors — and more significantly, we refuse to change our ways. Stringency, Jared, is using a garden rake to weed out seeds of doubt or grains of malicious intent: ultimately fruitless. A villain is a villain if he wishes to be. Steel bars and chains and watchful gazes will breed only dissent and hate. We cannot turn away any student that has the mere _capacity_ to use their powers for mercenary gain, nor can we keep a controlling, looming eye on all that could possibly indicate selfish nature.

“It’s to no doubt that we are an institute aligned to the betterment of lives, to use powers to save and bring prosperity to those that are not as fortunate as we... and although we do not monitor our student’s actions to the hair, we discourage and punish acts of self-gain.”

He brings out a cigarette at this, and as he flicks his fingers together to create a spark, Jared realises that he must be an Internal: resistance — enough so that his fingers can become as hard as flint.

“But at heart, the Academy was founded by scholars. Not saints, not humanitarians, not businessmen. Scholars.” He brings the cigarette up to his lips, takes a drag as they continue to descend. “And we have always kept the Board filled with like minds. We embrace all powers, encourage them, train them, regardless of inherently manipulative aspects or manipulatable ones.” A pause. “You are one as such.”

Jared feels something icy cold wash over him. “But I don’t know what I am.”

“A catalyst.” Smoke rises in a skeletal pillar. “That’s what you are. If you’d paid attention to high school chemistry: two lines on the Maxwell-Boltzmann curve. You lower the energy required for others to perform their abilities around you. Perhaps it’s possible for you to raise it, too. It’s no wonder you hadn’t realised. Growing up in a small town, few other Supers, dismissing luck for coincidence...” He pauses. “Also intrinsically manipulatable.”

Jared’s a bit speechless. Despite evidence to the contrary, it’s never really hit him until now. _He has a superpower._ And _figures_ he’s some sort of... Super that can’t actually do anything alone. “I’m not going to be manipulated,” he ends up saying, feeling a bit small.

“If no villain realises and you learn to control it, of course not. But currently we’re unaware whether or not it _is_ controllable by you at all,” the man says. “I’m sure you understand the importance of this, Jared. You may feel tempted to tell others when you feel they have earned your confidence and your trust. But word spreads faster than plague and not all places are as closed to ears as this tower is. I’ll extend to you the offer of erasing your memory when we return, if you want. There’s one student here who’s capable of it.”

“I... No thanks,” Jared says. The idea of someone rooting around in his head disturbs him. He’s sure he can keep his mouth closed. _He’s_ concerned for his safety too! He doesn’t want some villain to come swooping in and tying him up and using him like a magnifier glass. It’s not like he has any friends he’d want to tell, anyway.

“We’ll be passing you off for a Null, or a low-potential Outlier. Until you’ve gained mastery, discretion is crucial. It won’t be an easy life; register that.”

“Okay,” Jared says, imagining telling his parents about this. They won’t be surprised he’s a ... “low-potential”. It does ache a little, though, knowing he can’t tell them the truth. Not yet.

The bottom of the stairwell is still a ways to go, so Jared sifts for a way to ask the question that’s popped up in his mind since the start. “Why, uh, is the Eye not exactly... human? Do superheroes...” He imagines himself, for a moment, as a serpent like the Eye. From all the superheroes he’s seen on television, none of them have ever looked like that. They’ve just been normal people. Is there some sort of ominous fate they keep out of the eyes of the media?

“He used to be a very intelligent young man,” comes the reply. “Exceptional telekinetic. His talent in reaching over the globe with his abilities was phenomenal. But when his wife broke his heart, he leapt into the sea to twist himself into the most horrid being he could be, and the only things now that he extends around the earth are his riddled lungs and all-seeing eye.”

Jared says, words hanging, “She...”

“Is dead,” he replies calmly, but Jared can sense a hint of remorse. “Didn’t even stop to visit her child before leaping after her husband to break her body on the rocks below.”

The foot of the stairs arrive, just on time, like a boat docking from the misty shore.

“We never unravelled the mystery,” the man says. “But now she lies at the bottom of the sea, and truths about himself are the truths that the Eye will never speak.”

 

* * *

 

Being in class makes Jared feel both distinctly aware of his powers and distinctly aware of the absence of them.

He also realises that, despite the multitude of unique and frankly weird shit he’s seen going down, most superpowers aren’t that strange. There are only five dorm rooms in the Outlier wing, and two of them are empty. So that’s about ten outliers to a couple hundred telekinetics. The Internals have even higher numbers. Ten outliers to maybe a thousand of them, with resistance and enhanced senses galore. At least the Externals are only really telekinetics.

He’s sharing his room with this slightly wacky dude named Chad who seems to be able to influence the weather. Right now he’s in the telekinesis class, one of the only classes for externals, watching telekinetics whizz things around. And of course, because _he’s_ there, they’re all doing better than usual. In fact, he can see their faces lighting up with glee as they speed through the teacher’s assigned tasks. Lift a ten kilogram mass, the teacher says, and they all do it with ease. Jared, in the meantime, takes notes of the professor’s advice and _tries,_ without trying to look like he’s trying. Exert your will, exercise the muscles that haven’t ever been used. Honestly? He doesn’t feel like he’s changing anything, at all. He just feels like normal old him.

Jared’s been introduced as a Low-Potential. Basically a Null. It’s implied that he’s from a family with money, here because he wants to study Supers or wants to be one. It’s kind of a shitty reputation to have, and he realises this when the day progresses and still no one talks to him. Maybe it’s an Outlier thing, maybe it’s a Jared thing, or maybe it’s a Null thing; but because the other Outliers have people hanging off them, and because Jared’s never had a problem with making friends, he’s pretty sure it’s the Null label.

Time passes and Jared falls into routine. There’s a surprising amount of theory and writing that’s needed. He learns a lot about telekinetics, how they have an extra organ in their head (!!!) that produces waves, what sort of exercises they undertake, and he practices them in the safety of his own dorm and sometimes in class. Except, when he does it, he inevitably closes his eyes and it looks like he’s sleeping.

He’s pretty sure his classmates don’t like them. The only friend he really has is Chad, who is kind of vulgar, kind of blunt, and keeps urging Jared to wag class with him.

Jared gets his first paper back for Externals’ Gen. Ed. He gets an A+, which he feels like he kind of deserves after spending all his days studying, but he fails the practical that the professor springs on him. Fails. He _literally_ fails — unable to make anything move at all on the desk, let alone guide a feather through a maze.

The feather doesn’t move. Around the room there’s only the occasional _BEEEEP!_ when someone’s feather brushes the wall of the maze. Or ball bearing. Some people have moved onto heavier weights at this point, having passed the feather-maze test perfectly, and some of the mazes are shifting. The mazes are built into custom desks with glass over them and a counter that records mistakes.

Jared’s says zero, but it’s not because he’s talented at telekinetics. Even Chad is making a wind pick up and blow the feather through the maze. The other Outliers have their own creative ways of passing the test; one girl is tweaking the temperature of the air around the feather so that it’s carried along.

His professor encouragingly tells him that even Low-Potentials can eventually do well. The Outliers might find it a little harder to pass the tests, but they’re graded accordingly.

Jared stares at the feather. It stares back. Or, more rather, it sits there stubbornly. His professor says that his ability might not be able to move the feather at all, and she says it with such empathy that it just makes him _frustrated._ His classmates are all doing spectacularly. His professor is singing praises. No one’s maze is even beeping at _all_ anymore. And here Jared is, the only one still with a feather at the start of the maze.

One girl slams her hands down. “I’m done!” she shouts, beaming. “I’m done with all the weights!”

“Excellent!” their professor says, sweeping over to examine the gleaming number 0 at the bottom of her desk. The other students start hurrying, desperate to finish too. The girl leans back into her seat smugly. She crosses her arms and looks over at the other students.

More people finish all the weights. His professor exclaims her surprise: first and second year students hardly ever manage to control all the masses through all the variations of the maze so well. They’ve got an excellent cohort. People start chattering to each other, craning over at other students and jeering them on. Somewhere, Chad hoots as he finishes.

Jared feels the back of his neck heating up, embarrassment starting to flood his face when someone yells for the Null. He feels clunky, clumsy, out of place, the ugly kid everybody snickers at. There’s an invisible force anchoring him to the feather — he can’t look away, won’t look to see the way other people are laughing around him, _at_ him. It’s the stone-clad certainty of ridicule that keeps his head where it is.

He hears his name, a laugh, because they _are_ laughing at him: the rich little kid who shouldn’t even be here. See how he’s trying so hard?

The professor announces time. Jared doesn’t look up at anybody as they tidy up and she congratulates them all. He flees from the class as soon as he can, but someone sticks out their foot and catches him and he goes tumbling to the ground in a flurry of paper.

He still doesn’t raise his head even as gathers his notes up and leaves, aware that his face is tomato-red, sound ringing in his ears.  

 

* * *

 

Jared takes up Chad’s offer to skip class, after that. Chad leads him out to the city surrounding the Academy, saying that they’re going to meet up with a few of the older kids. Jared thinks he knows the type: the kids who think they’re too good for school, lingering around outside and on the fringes, inhaling rebellion with typical teenager hauteur. And he knows Chad’s type as well: the little rascal yapping at their feet, scrounging up the scraps.

He knows _his_ type, too. But he prefers not to think about it.

They step down through a side alley door, Jared following behind, regretting his decision more with each passing moment. It’s dark and murky and generally a place where people get murdered, but when they swing open another door, noise floods in alight with colour. Someone with a stony face stops them. Chad grins, slanted and sly, and lets a little thundercloud dart around his finger.

They’re let in. The place opens up to what seems to be a lounge. Quiet music rings through and around the room. People are slung over sofas, sleeping off hangovers or blearily eating breakfast from a bar in the corner of the room. It’s clearly a Super hangout, hazy in the underground, lazing in dim light. Things slide by on their own, some people move a little too quickly, and no one else bats an eye. Jared keeps his head down as much as he can, distinctly aware of the fact that everybody inside seems a great deal older than him.

He recognises the smell of marijuana, and the bottles at the foot of the sofas don’t make him feel any better, either.

“Chad! My man!” a man calls, spreading his arms. Chad hops down to the guy, Jared still trailing behind like an afterthought.

“Stephen!” Chad calls back. He claps the Stephen guy on the shoulder. “Meet my new dude, Jared Padalecki, baby Outlier, codename Null.” He turns to Jared, slanting a grin. “Jared, Stephen Amell, run-o’-the-mill telekinetic.”

“Hi,” Jared says, feeling slightly abashed and too tall to duck away from the seeking gaze. He doesn’t want to be introduced as a Null. He practically feels Stephen’s attention sliding off of him like cold water as soon as the label is tacked onto him.

“Run of the mill, Murray?” Stephen smiles, toothily. “You’re talking to the academic award-winner.”

“Yeah, well, we all know you cheat,” Chad cackles. Jared feels uncomfortable, suddenly, as though Chad is missing out on a joke. The image of a snivelling beggar snuffling for scraps strikes him again. Chad isn’t at home here, not really, and he tries too hard to fit in, the small fry nosing up to sharks. Jared won’t be coming back here after today. “‘Cause you know, you’ve got Jen—”

“Who’s got me?”

Jared is suddenly blindingly sure that someone’s punched him in the gut. The first thing he thinks, in a neanderthal sort of way, is: _wow._ The second thing he thinks is that someone threaded him through with barbed wire and dragged it from his mouth, hooking his organs and wrenching them out.

He knows, abruptly, several things. The man before him is called Jensen Ackles. He’s a reserved man, the universe churning just a little under the surface, but hands out kindness ever-willingly. Jared– _stars, cold metal, warm lights and infernos, salt sprays, black gold, sullen fabric and bright floods and piercing judgement under a beast’s thrum, the taste of a blood and a bullet on his tongue._

_Two bodies curled around each other in the same grave._

—wants, suddenly, to fall to his knees. Jared’s never been religious, but _damn_ him as well as Hell can, because his world judders and shakes and grinds to a stop and hesitantly begins to spin again but on a new axis around the green-eyed man.

Stephen’s arm comes around Jensen. He pulls Jensen close, says, like smoke, “ _I_ do.”

Their lips meet. Stephen’s hand cradles the gentle curve of Jensen’s face while Jared’s stomach drops. It takes the barbed wire with it, clatters its way down through his body, thrashes, splatters onto the floor: something rotten that’s burst.

Stephen doesn’t take his eyes away from Jensen even when they part, but Jensen does. He turns as if he’s felt the viciousness behind a spectator’s glare. When their eyes meet, Jared is struck hard-handed by shame. Breathlessly, before he drops his gaze, he sees Jensen’s delicate eyebrows furrow like he’s trying to place why there’s a man watching him with such fervent worship in his eyes.

Jared feels equally like a dreadful, perverse voyeur and like a vicious beast is beating somewhere behind his ribs, snapping against his bones with harsh cracks. He realises, through a distance, that Stephen has Jensen tucked under his arm and is introducing him with a name that resonates through Jared like a struck chord. Then they’re moving, the four of them, towards a group of couches in front of a television where some Supers are still sleeping deeply but there is space enough.

“So, Jared,” Stephen says, pleasantly, “how are you finding the Academy? To your tastes?”

Saying that he felt surprised and that it was nothing near what he’d imagined it to be would be the wrong answer. It isn’t an answer that comes from a rich boy who’s here riding on his family’s money. His mouth is numb. It only wants to chant Jensen’s name. “It’s great. It really is. I– reading about it is a lot different to being here, you know?”

Jared hates lying, hates lying even more when it’s in the face of a green-eyed man with tousled blond hair. But, in a war of ache and relief, Jared realises that Jensen doesn’t even look at him. Jensen gives Jared a cursory glance and then he’s tilted his head away, pillowed against Stephen’s arm, turned towards the news anchor on the television.

The two supervillains in arms, Lightning and Mist, have held up a newspaper building in town central. The police have yet to get a lock on their respective powers. Something about electricity, though.

“It is,” Stephen says. “Though shouldn’t you be in class, Jared?”

“He’s a smart kid,” Chad laughs. “He doesn’t _need_ to stay in class to catch ‘A’s.”

“How’re you gonna get full marks as a Null, huh?”

“I don’t,” Jared chokes out.

“Well, they still put you with the Outliers, didn’t they?” Stephen says. “You know, Outliers all have tricks up their sleeves. Even little Chad here.”

Stephen’s hand has curled around Jensen, and Jensen makes a small movement — a nuzzle, really — that brings him closer into Stephen’s hold. Jensen isn’t even listening. His legs are kicked up against the sofa armrest, head cradled by his boyfriend. Of course he isn’t. Jensen doesn’t care about some meaningless first-year who’s stumbled into their fold.

Looking at the scene makes Jared feel sick. He can’t focus at all. The news anchor’s faint voice becomes a throbbing drone, and he can’t seem to hold onto his thoughts. They keep slipping away, draining, writhing out of his hands to chase after and skewer themselves on the figure curled on the couch. There’s a fist around his heart and his lungs, squeezing.

He’s going to throw up. The urge to rip Jensen out of Stephen’s hands is overwhelming. Sears a brand against his chest.

“Excuse me, I’m so sorry,” Jared manages. Stephen is speaking. Jared’s not sure what he’s even saying. He hasn’t been able to hear anything over the sound of his own blood for the last minute. “Where’s the bathroom?”

Chad waves a hand. Jared all but bolts, legs nearly giving way, stumbling across the room and out a side door that leads into a clean, crisp hallway. The whiteness of it comes as a splash of sobriety. Doors swing wide as he pushes past a few more doors into one of the individual, private stalls. The tap floods on and he shoves his head right under the stream, willing it to wash away the madness that’s gripped him.

By the time his fingers are curled tightly against the porcelain and he’s looking into the mirror at a face he hardly recognises, he feels a little better. The tap is still going at full power, the sound a distant waterfall, the drain eating it up greedily.

Jared’s never been a person for jealousy. He’s never been so out-of-control, either. Not a bomb rigged to blow. Maybe— maybe it’s not Jared. Maybe it’s _Jensen’s_ superpower? Maybe he _bewitches_ people? That can’t be right, though, because otherwise Jared would’ve seen Jensen in the Outlier’s wing... Unless Jensen never returns to his dorm. It starts to make more and more sense, clouds clearing from his vision. This must be some sort of test, and Stephen and Chad must be very, very, skilful actors.

He stares at the mirror. His reflection stares back, looking exhausted. But the longer he holds the stare, the more he is aware of a dawning wrongness that creeps up his neck, curling slimy fingers across his skin. It’s not the toilet, not the window in the corner of the room, not the stack of paper rolls, not the hand dryer, not the mirror...

The drain’s no longer making noises — that’s what it is. And when Jared looks down to see a familiar sight, he realises why. The tap is running. The sink is filled to the brim with thick blue water and the tap keeps going and he can’t see the bottom. The water isn’t spilling out. It’s just flooding into nowhere. Then something shifts in the depths.

A dark fin breaks the surface, slicing through the air before disappearing back into the dimensionless sink. Then the water, with a great sucking sound, drains, and it’s nothing but an innocent porcelain sink again.

The tap is running. The drain slurps it up.

Jared knows a damn warning when he sees one.

He can’t be trusted around Jensen.

He slams the tap off, unlocks the door, climbs out the window and nearly runs all the way back to his dorm.

 

* * *

 

Jared lies his ass off to Chad when Chad returns to their room — says he’s a prude, the guilt got to him, you know? Feels uncomfortable around so much alcohol and drugs.

Then he realises he can’t stop seeing Jensen. In the corridors he’s got his head bowed as he flits from class to class with long strides and, inevitably, he rounds the corner to lurch back as Jensen Ackles crashes into him. Jensen’s books fall. Jared picks them up, determinedly not looking at him, and Jensen snatches them back with a barely muttered, “Watch it, big guy.” Jared only dares look up at Jensen’s retreating back once he’s sure the other man is walking away. Jensen sure doesn’t act like he knows he’s bewitching Jared. For one, no one else seems to be affected by Jensen’s presence, but Jensen’s likely got good control over his powers and is letting them loose only on Jared.

So– Jared gets up early in the mornings, right? It’s a habit ingrained from back home, where he’d rise with the sun and follow it around the block, shoes bouncing off the concrete as his blood starts to pump. He’s just jogging past the telekinetics’ wing (which is also the Externals’ wing, considering 98% of them are teles) when he sees Jensen stumbling out the front door, running a hand through messy hair, books hugged between his arm and his chest, mouth opened in a yawn. He looks exhausted, and well-fucked. Jared’s heart stutters, flounders, and performs a truly magnificent belly-flop. No wonder he never sees Jensen about. Jensen spends all his time in Stephen’s room!

It’s only when he gets back to his room with his heart still pounding double-time that he realises he’s been going about this in a pretty stupid way. “Chad,” he says as he pushes open the door to his dorm and the other man’s in the bathroom in only his boxers and brushing his teeth. “Who’re the other Outliers?”

After a glob of toothpaste has been spat into the sink, Chad rattles them off with lazy precision. Julia, Kelly, meaningless names.

Jensen’s not an Outlier.

_Jensen’s not an Outlier._

“Huh,” Jared hears himself say. “Okay. That’s. Anyway, I uh– When are you done in there? I kinda need to take a shower.”

Half a day later in class, when time has well ticked over into evening, Jared is still reeling. It isn’t Jensen. It’s _Jared._ Isn’t it? But there... there can’t be anything wrong with him. He’s not– his power has nothing to do with that. And he refuses to believe something so obsessive and uncontrollable stems from his usually mild heart. Jared doesn’t love like a wildfire. He loves like a steady tide. How can this be him?

Just then, the professor announces that a few of the older students are coming in for a demonstration.

Of course Jensen walks in. Just in time to witness Jared’s uselessness in the classroom. The fourth years demonstrate the effects when two telekinetics attempt to exert their will on the same object, and Jensen handles it all with professional expertise and charismatic smiles. He’s introduced (to all that he denies it) as the “top kinetic in the university” and outstrips all of his peers by far. Jared sits in the back of the class — no longer taking notes because he’s entranced by the sight of Jensen using his powers — with NULL and inadequacy written all over his face.

This time, when the lesson and lecture ends, Jared isn’t the first out the door. He’s gripped by a sudden impulsiveness, a need. He needs _answers_. Jensen leaves, slinging a bag over his shoulder, falling into a purposeful stride. Jared surreptitiously hurries after him, trying to look preoccupied with his phone and texting his little sister as the rest of the students jostle him. It’s easy enough to do. Jared can almost sense Jensen in his peripherals, and the crowd filling the halls is easy enough to disguise himself in. Okay, maybe that’s dampened by the fact he’s so tall, but it helps nonetheless.

Jared’s not entirely familiar with the layout of the Academy, so he’s not sure yet where Jensen’s going. But he _is_ sure that Jensen isn’t just returning to his dorm. Jared feverently hopes that he isn’t going somewhere to meet up with Stephen just to make out. Something in Jared twists up again at the thought of that, like the sudden spiteful thing he’s become.

The corridors grow emptier. Jared falls back further, unwilling to be openly stalking. Meanwhile, Jensen seems to be picking up the pace, disappearing around a corner and starting up one of the towers of the Academy.

Jared stops. He shouldn’t follow up the tower. What if Jensen’s just going to his evening lecture (which probably involves jumping off and catching himself)? What if he’s going up there to meet up with Stephen as some sort of date? Either way, it’ll be damn obvious that Jared’s following if he chooses to go. He shouldn’t.  

He turns away, steadfastly resolving to try again later, when an invisible force yanks him back by the collar and hauls up towards the tower. His feet bounce off the steps as he’s dragged backwards through the air up the spiral staircases and he yells when it suddenly opens to a landing and he’s flung against a wall.

His head complains with pain. The landing is dark, the only light unfurling in from a horizontal, glassless slit of a window in the wall. Jensen is a juxtaposition of red and orange and blue, a looming shadow, leaning in until Jared can count his eyelashes. Like the growl of a car engine, he says, “Why are you following me?”

It should infuriate him, the way Jensen can steal Jared’s breath away so effortlessly. He doesn’t appear angry, but the sharp threat of danger is coiled in his arms, in the flicker of his depthless eyes, even in the dusk-kissed curve of his lips.

There are a hundred answers to that question, but Jared says, “I thought you did something to me.”

“I’m sorry. You’re mistaken _._ ” Jensen’s arm shifts. His eyebrows draw together as he tries to place Jared. “You’re the Null, aren’t you?”

He’s not a Null. _Tell him, tell him, tell him,_ his insides chant. The words heave inside his mouth, press insistently against his teeth, threaten to slither out. But he can’t. Jared can’t tell. He drops his eyes instead, ashamed, and nods. Isn’t even allowed to look at the telekinetic in front of him.

After a pause, Jensen says, nearly gently, “You know those eyes of yours can’t hide anything, don’t you?” Jared’s lungs go out. The world around him fades to white. “You’re not the first one pick up a crush on me.” Jensen looks uncomfortable, having to say this. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I really am. But– I’ve got a boyfriend that I love and have loved forever.”

The confirmation breaks Jared’s heart even though he must’ve known it from the start, and as it shatters open it’s accompanied with a wave of guilt. He finally looks up. The light’s caught on Jensen’s eyelashes and the curves of his face, and the colours and shadows drape themselves over his skin in paint-strokes. His eyes are achingly concerned, holding true guilt in their cusps. If Jared just surged forwards... he could capture his lips. If he just reached forwards, he could take Jensen’s hand. They’re close enough to. The moment presses into Jared’s skin, burns itself against his eyelids, but the truth is that Jensen is as distant as the moon and as unreachable.

It really strikes him then: Jared _is_ just in love with Jensen, no trickery, and some part of him whispers _soulmate_ but he shoves it aside as soon as it rears its head. Jared was unlucky, stupid, got his foot caught in the bear-trap, because he’d given his heart away to someone who’s not going to love him back.

So instead of lurching forwards, reaching for the one thing his every bone aches for, Jared says in a voice where the words are choked half-way up his throat, “You’re right.” Shame burns away everything else. “You don’t even know my _name._ ”

His leap to his feet is as loud as a gunshot. Jared hardly sees Jensen’s guilt-stricken expression before he’s tearing down the stairs, vision blurring from anger, hating the way he has to run from everything.

He wishes he’d never come here. His footsteps thunder in his ears and build in a roaring crescendo, waves roaring as they smash against a jagged cliff.

He just wants to go home.

 

* * *

 

Thursday, 7:00 AM: Jared walks into the cafe with his head stuck in his notes and hardly notices that he didn’t ask for his usual sweet-laden milk-filled atrocity masquerading as coffee until he’s called up to the counter and picks up what is solidly black, no hint of cream in sight. Somehow his order just slipped his mind and he picked up... this, instead.

Jared looks at it. He can’t stomach this sort of drink, but he holds onto it anyway because throwing away good coffee will forever be a sin. Maybe he’ll give it to Chad, he thinks absently, but even more keenly, something in him tells him _Jensen_ will like it. He struggles with it for a solid half-hour. Waste the coffee or face embarrassment and actually give something nice to Jensen. Waste the coffee, or feel like a creep.

His momma taught him never to waste, so when he sees Jensen in the halls he thrusts the still-warm coffee into his hands and blurts, “For you–” before shouldering his bag up higher and basically running.

 

* * *

 

Eventually Jared learns to distance himself from his scores. So what if he does poorly? The heads of the school know the truth, and that’s what really matters. He’d signed up for this, anyway. Eventually he’ll get better and his classmates and professors will learn the truth.

But while _he’s_ struggling in academia, Megan sends Jared a screenshot of her SAT score and he’s so chuffed that he prints it out and sticks it proudly above his bed. She only lost ten, she says, because the reading section is a total pain in the ass. Why does she even need to know stupidly obscure vocabulary if she wants to major in _architecture_?

He’s feeling particularly buzzed today, something thrumming under his skin, and he’s not too sure why. _It’s a special day today,_ he realises. Why? He’s doesn’t know, but he’s sure it’ll come to him later.

“That your score?” Chad asks, squinting.

“My little sister’s,” Jared says, chest puffing up with pride. “She’s a real whizz. I mean, she’s not even in her last year of high school and she’s already a lot smarter than me, you know? She wants to get into UCB — but only on a scholarship — ‘cause she’ll feel too bad otherwise, and study architecture. Maybe business.”

He imagines that for a moment. Coming home after spending so long in this other world to see his family again. It’ll be strange. He’s gotten used to the powers in the halls and the rooms already.

“I’ve got siblings too,” Chad yawns. “But none of them are here. Just me. I’ll tell you, my ma was pretty angry about that.”

“Your parents are Supers?” That’s news to him. Contrary to how he usually works, Jared hasn’t been particularly sociable; he hasn’t learnt much about Chad despite the months of his stay here.

“Yeah,” Chad says. “They keep a confidentiality clause on that, you know? You’re not supposed to give your parents’ names when you sign up here if they’re Supers, ‘case the professors give you favouritism or something. Or ‘case the kids keep up their parents’ fights, or if villains get ya to get to your dad, or something like that. My ass is already in high enough demand without my momma being piled on top of that.”

Jared deigns not to acknowledge that. “My family’s all normal. It’ll be weird to talk to them about all this when I get back.”

“Figured you’ve stayed long enough?” When Jared looks, Chad’s eyes are glittering. “I honestly don’t know what more fun you’re getting here as a Null, man.”

“I’m getting enough,” Jared says, irritably.

“Hell, Jay, you won’t even go out with me to visit Stephen and the guys!”

“Maybe that’s because I don’t want to go to some drugged up, drunken hideout where everybody’s five years older than me.” Jared isn’t aggressive — in fact he, never is. What he _is_ though, is snide. When he wants to be.

“Nah, big Jay.” Chad rolls his head back, cracking his bones. Jared’s irritability seems to slide off him easy. “We’re meeting up next month in a place that I bet you’ll like: one of their dad’s big ol’ buildings.” He grins, suddenly, widely. “Ain’t gonna be no dirty work there, not with all the Supers around. Goin’ on tour for future jobs or something.”

Jared has to admit, grudgingly, that it _does_ sound a little interesting. He’s not very well-informed about Supers’ lives and what they do once they graduate; he figures, as an Outlier, he’d have to take on a pretty unique job anyway. But going to the gathering means he might bump into _Jensen,_ and that’s really the kicker.

“Sorry, man,” Jared says, “but no. I’m kind of busy trying not to fail.”

Chad shrugs, flopping down into the chair at the desk on his side of the room. “In case you change your mind, J-man.” He scribbles something onto a piece of paper and slaps it down onto Jared’s bed.

Jared doesn’t look at it; he shakes his head at Chad’s stubbornness and leaves for the library. He has a paper– no, _two_ papers due on the ‘Uses of telenetics as a healing art’. Telekinesis is one of the most versatile and formidable superpowers out there, Jared thinks grumpily. Considering it’s just about influencing external systems, there’s no surprise that all Externals, minus Outliers, are telekinetics. In their third and further years, the telekinetics tend to start to diverge into more intricate branches.

Seriously, you can do _anything_. If you’ve got it down to a fine hair you can influence the passage of chemicals in cells. If you’re truly godly, you can twist intermolecular bonds to synthesise chemicals. If you’re even _more_ godly, you can rip protons from nuclei and change the very elements. Or, you know, you could do the opposite, go heavy lifting, and construct whole buildings, given the materials.

Walking around in the library and looking for a seat gives him all the time he needs to mull over the fact that these papers are technically useless to him. He won’t ever need to apply this learning. Like, _ever._ Unless he grows up to be a decorative pot plant in a hospital to aid the medical Supers in their healing. Or an IV bag. Apparently hooking up a Super’s blood to people gives them a hit of their powers. It’s awfully strange and slightly disturbing.

Anyway, he’s got a methodological approach to looking for seats. Starting from the isolated corners, he works inwards to the big public desks where he’ll have to sit beside some other random kid who he prays doesn’t know he’s a ‘Null’. Jared starts at the upper left hand corner, third level of the library. Goes through in a clockwise fashion, then takes the stairs down and looks for seats on the next floor. The place is marvelous, really. The staircases are in the centre of the library, and they open around a huge chandelier that glows golden.

Jared is totally up for appreciating the hominess of the Academy’s main study area when he realises he’s somehow broken out of his routine sweep and that he’s walking past a stack of books to see the one person he doesn’t want to see: Jensen Ackles, chewing on a pen with a towering stack of books beside him and ink flecking his hands as he types on a laptop. His shirt hangs loose, his hair looks like it hasn’t been patted into any semblance of decency and he looks, frankly, _really_ fucking tired. There’s a window of patterned glass right by his desk that casts him in light that makes him look otherworldly.

It’s absolutely just Jared’s luck that Jensen looks up when he rounds the corner. Jared’s dumb traitor mouth pops open, like it seems to do whenever he meets Jensen, and says, “H-hi. Uh, you look-” — _beautiful,_ he nearly says—“tired.”

Jensen stares at him. Jared wants to cringe into the next dimension. Where did that come from? That’s not– that’s not what you just _say_ to people! Of course Jensen knows he’s tired! He doesn't need Jared coming and telling him that.

“Yeah,” Jensen says, in a gravelly tone that makes Jared shiver a little. He doesn’t understand why Jensen looks so worn out. It isn’t exam season, so–

The title at the top of the document that Jensen’s working so hard on says, ‘Thermochemistry and the Manipulation of Kinetic Energy,’ even when a written essay on the desk says the same thing, and Jensen isn’t just transcribing the already-written text onto the computer. There’s a name at the top of the document and it isn’t his.

Understanding strikes hard and fast. Before Jared knows it, his trepidation drops away and he’s hissing out, “You seriously can _not_ be.”

Jensen just looks at him, the light from the windows falling over the bags under his eyes.

Anger rises in him, ugly and unwelcome. “Stephen can _not_ be making you write his essay–”

“Look,” Jensen cuts him off brusquely, “if you’re just gonna come here to insult my boyfriend, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

See, the thing is, for all his earlier horror, now Jared doesn’t _want_ to leave. He wants to stand here with his fists clenched and shake the sense into Jensen. He wants to argue because clearly Stephen isn’t _worth_ Jensen.

“Well okay,” Jared says, snideness boiling up in him. “I don’t have to insult your _boyfriend_ when I can ask what the hell’s wrong with _you._ Why do you let yourself get pushed and pulled around by him—”

Jensen’s chair is shoved back, the tiredness in his eyes vanishing under sparks of anger. “You don’t have _any_ right to be talking about—”

“Yeah, because I’m a _Null_?”

“—because _you_ are trying to shove your way into a problem that’s got nothing to do with you!”

“See? You _admit_ it’s a problem! _”_

“As if that gives you any sort of jurisdiction into my life!”

Silence falls between them like a window slamming shut, as if they both realise in the same instant that  they’re shouting in a library, face-to-face and flushed with anger. Exasperated, Jared turns on his heel. Jensen isn’t his problem anyway. If he’s not going to listen to Jared, fine. He sneers as such as he storms away. “Sure,” he mutters, “I was just coming to say happy birthday... not that you want to hear it.”

He’s not sure where the birthday comment comes from, but as soon as he says it he realises it’s what had been haunting him all morning: the nagging sense that he had something to address, a present to give.

A force fists the back of his shirt as he’s walking and spins him around, but Jared’s angry retort at being jerked about dies on his lips as soon as he sees Jensen’s expression.

His eyes are blown wide, anger still blushing his cheeks red, but the startlement that paints his face is clear. “How did you know that?”

Yanking himself out of the telekinetic grasp, Jared says, “Oh, now you wanna hear what I’ve got to say?”

Jensen’s suddenly in his space, pressing forwards, gaze intent and searching, grabbing Jared by the collar. To his chagrin, Jared finds himself unable to look away, and he knows it’s got nothing to do with Jensen’s powers. “Are you a psychic? Shit– Is that why you let everyone think you’re a Null?”

“No!” Jared spits. He tries to free himself from Jensen’s clutches, his shirt twisting in Jensen’s whited fingers. “I’m not psychic! What’s it to you, anyway? It’s just a birthday — I could’ve found it anywhere!”

He’s shaken back and forth. “I’m an _orphan,_ idiot. No one knows my birthday! _”_ Anguish floods Jensen’s eyes. “Turned up on the steps of this place without even knowing how _old_ I was–”

 _Four years,_ Jared thinks helplessly. The thought just exists in his head like it’s always been there in a quiet corner, waiting to be drawn upon. _Four years older than I am._

“–No one has any clue. No one! How on earth did you know, Jared?” It strikes Jared, ice-quick, that Jensen must’ve taken pains to learn his name after their encounter in the tower.

Jensen’s stopped shaking him like a rag doll. His eyes are filled with frustrated imploration, if that’s even a thing. Partly desperate, mostly angry.

“It was just a hunch,” Jared says, unable to look away. “I’m probably wrong about it anyway.”

“You’re not,” Jensen says with utter conviction. His gaze is stormy and intense. “You’re not. I know.”

The moment hangs there between them, swelling with heat, and then Jared swears he sees Jensen’s eyelashes falter and then drop to Jared’s mouth. His own lips part on an instinctive exhale and his want for Jensen flares up again, as sudden as tossing oil into an open flame.

It hits him hard enough to wind him: this is a _monumentally_ stupid idea.

“Then you know the same way as I do,” Jared says. When Jensen’s eyes snap back up to him, he wrenches himself out of Jensen’s slackened hold and bolts down the aisles.

This time, Jensen doesn’t drag him back.

 

* * *

 

“Who’s, um.” Jared tries not to seem conspicuous when he glances at the paper Chad left scribbled on his desk. “So who’s going to that thing that I know?”

“Only Stephen and me. You don’t know _anyone_ ,” Chad shrugs. Then it rolls into a lascivious grin. “But I’m enough for you, aren’t I? C’mon, people like, pay _tickets_ to see The Chad.”

“Oh,” Jared says, too distracted by the fact that _Jensen’s not going —_ which suddenly means something much more different — and doesn’t bring it up again.

 

* * *

 

It’s like a switch has been hit. Jared can’t stop running into Jensen wherever he goes. He walks into the wrong classrooms, the fourth-years’, and flushes furiously while backing out and running his mouth with apologies. He goes to the library for study and _keeps_ bumping into where Jensen’s working. Normally he just turns away and leaves as quickly as possible, because he’s hopelessly in love with Jensen who’s already got his own boyfriend. It’s just. Interaction between them should be limited. For both their sakes.

This is one such instance. He can’t find any seats in the library, he’s been looking for the better half of an hour, and he’s just walked into Jensen studiously working.

Jared immediately turns away with his books clutched in hand, heart racing as it always does when he sees Jensen, the image of the other man captured like a photo in his mind’s eye. “Jared,” he hears Jensen say. “For god’s sake, you’ve been running around for so long. There’s a perfectly fine chair here.”

Jared freezes like a rabbit in the headlights. _Jensen_ wants _Jared_ to sit down? “I need,” he says, looking for some sort of excuse. Oh god, he can’t keep himself in check if he’s left alone with Jensen, “To, uh, study.”

“You can study perfectly fine here.” There’s an empty seat opposite Jensen.

Trepidatiously, Jared approaches, settling into the chair and trying to fold himself up to seem as small and unobtrusive as possible. He searches Jensen’s face for some sort of ulterior motive, but Jensen’s just calmly going back to his work, his pen scribbling over a page. After a moment, Jared realises he’s been staring too long and jerks his eyes away. He spreads his books out and tries to get absorbed into his study, but he can’t help glancing upwards every now and then as if disbelieving of the fact that he’s sitting opposite the one guy he’s hopelessly, unrequitedly, in love with.

He pretty much gets no work done before Jensen has to leave for class, and his knees would’ve absolutely given way if he hadn’t been sitting when Jensen shoots him a smile before he packs up and goes.

 

* * *

 

His face hits the ground with a sickening _crack_ and as he feels his lip split against his teeth he realises he should’ve really seen this coming. Being the ace in all your classes for theoretical work is a really, really bad idea when you don’t actually have tangible superpowers to show anybody. Jared dug the grave, too, because he’s deliberately called out too many people on their incorrect answers before.

“Think you’re so clever, Padalecki?” someone above him sneers. Telekinesis is simultaneously trying to tear his hair out by the roots while grinding him into the floor until Jared cries out in pain. His jaw is snapped shut as soon as it opens and he bites his tongue hard enough for his eyes to water.

They’re in one of the more isolated corridors. No one’s going to come across this.

“This place isn’t for _clever,_ ” the second-year above him continues. “It’s for _talent._ You’ve got none.”

His windpipe constricts. Jared whites out. Blacks out, more accurately, with purple and red eating the edges of his vision. The blood flow is cut off from his brain; he doesn’t even get time to think _I’m going to die._

The world rocks against the wall. His lungs are gasping for breath. His mind is completely blank.

Black.

Sneakers. The floor. Voices stirred into a blur he can’t understand.

Red.

His fingers are scrabbling at his throat against an invisible force.

A broken shade of purple.

Colour floods in, and he inhales with a sound like his trachea is rattling against his ribcage. The taste of iron is heavy on his tongue, and everything is dizzy when the blood rushes back into his systems with a suddenness that sweeps them away. There’s something solid against his back. It’s a wall. For all that it grounds him, when he looks at his hands, they’re shaking. There’s blood under his nails.

The hallway is quiet. Jared dares look up.

Jared thought he’d seen the extent of Jensen’s anger when they’d argued in the library. He thought he’d seen fire in Jensen’s eyes, thought he was familiar with the wrath of it, even if just the edges — but it’s nothing compared to the expression Jensen is wearing now. He looks more dangerous than Jared could’ve ever imagined. The very air _crackles_ around him. In that moment, it’s like Jared sees a whole different person. Jensen: controlled, powerful, a spirit with a taste for vengeance.

“I heard you calling,” Jensen says, in a quiet tone that threatens to bring down the ceiling around them.

Jared doesn’t say anything. He’s not sure he can even open his mouth. In fact, all that Jared does is pass out.

 

* * *

 

He leaves the infirmary after a few weeks’ stay with no lasting injuries. The boys are all expelled and put onto government watch for potential villainous activity.

Jensen smiles a little sadly at Jared when Jared comes to thank him. He says he should’ve made sure Jared never got hurt in the first place.  

Jared is not entirely sure what to make of that. He thinks he must have imagined Jensen’s pained tone.

 

* * *

 

When one day, of all seniors, _Stephen Amell_ walks in, Jared shuts down so fast he doesn’t even realise he’s the cause of everybody’s suddenly failure to conjure even a twitch.

Stephen is a specialist in the µ range (to the power of negative six). He works with animal cells, bacteria... that sort of thing.

Previously, everyone’s favourite classes had been the ones they shared with Jared (although they didn’t know he was the cause). They just knew that they had some classes they performed better in, and with expertise comes enthusiasm, that sort of stuff.

Now, even the lecturer looks a little flustered with his inability to manipulate the cell they’ve got under the projector. He launches into another spiel about how fluctuations in the ley lines means powers might be cranked low these days. Jared has the suspicion that no one buys it. They all watch Amell and the lecturer judgmentally, except then they move onto the next exercise (tying eyelashes into knots) and literally no one but the lecturer and Amell can make anything happen. Watching Amell appear competent, Jared glowers harder, and the mood in the room _drowns._

In hindsight, it was pretty obvious. Jared should be embarrassed that it took him half the lesson to notice _he_ was doing it, and even when he did, he didn’t know how to _stop._ He’s on edge the whole lesson, irrationally afraid that someone will trace it back to him. No one does — of course not — but he skips his next class anyway, taking to the streets outside, generally going nowhere and fretting to himself. He has no friends aside from Chad, his... relationship (if you can even call it that) with Jensen is shaky, and his powers and academics are all over the place.

He sees a big fluffy Samoyed sitting inside a nearby cafe that immediately snaps him out of his funk, and he makes a beeline towards it, crossing the road with a one-track mind. It’s just– it’s too cute. And happy. And fluffy. And Jared has a weak spot for dogs, okay? Maybe a weak ‘spot’ like a mile wide. When he enters, he’s suddenly aware that, for all that he’s explored off campus, he doesn’t recognise the place one bit. There’s a woman at the counter making someone’s coffee, a coffee machine working away, and a man — probably the owner of the Samoyed — with a newspaper. There’s hardly anyone else inside, which is unusual for a cafe so close to any sort of university.

Light music drifts through the speakers. Jared beams at the Samoyed, which smiles back. He completely melts inside and steps up to the register. The woman has grey hair even though she looks young, he notes absently. How does he not remember this place? She smiles at him. Asks him what he wants. He orders something. Probably a muffin. He can’t really remember.

 

* * *

 

Jared is not sure why he is where he is. He remembers ditching class and now he’s–

Um.

Chad is yabbering next to him about how good it is that Jared decided to come. The Chad manages to convince everyone eventually, or something. Stephen looks... mild, zoning out from Chad’s rant. Jensen doesn’t seem to be around. They aren’t alone, either. Other fourth-years are milling around the floor, generally drinking a little and nibbling on comfort food.

In the window next to him, the footpath is miles away. It’s evening. The street is filled with toy-like cars.

Someone he doesn’t know is sitting next to him and talking about the tour they just had, of which Jared remembers absolutely nothing. He nods anyway and tries not to look too confused, politely folding his hands on his lap and not touching anything. He feels a bit sick. Trying to eat the croissant in front of him would probably make him throw up everywhere.

The lights dim. Someone steps up to the podium at the front of the room. “Ladies and gentlemen,” they say into a microphone. Jared’s sitting near the back, and facing the entirely wrong direction to see the speaker. “Superheroes of all shapes and sizes, we’d like to thank you for choosing to tour Vernier Industries with us today.”

Jared tunes out completely, fiddling with a pen he finds in his pocket. It’s got the Vernier company logo on it, cheerfully catching what little light there is and throwing it back at him. He twiddles it and rolls it around his fingers aimlessly. He– he can’t remember what he did last. He ditched class, he left the Academy... and then what? He runs into a huge, stubborn, blank. It resists all his prodding and poking.

There is absolutely nothing natural about losing a huge _chunk_ of his memory. Either he’s been the unfortunate casualty of some other memory-related incident on a mass scale, or someone’s figured out he can magnify superpowers and they’ve gone ahead, used him, and wiped his memory.

How much time has passed? Hours? _Days?_ He remembers Chad giving him the date of this tour, so he knows it can’t have been _too_ long, but there’s something deeply unsettling about having his memory wiped. It’s completely unpredictable. In that time, he could’ve committed a crime. He could’ve murdered someone.

Jared shifts uncomfortably when the head of the guy next to him lolls onto his shoulder, clearly asleep, which is pretty rude considering Jared can still hear the drone of the woman talking about their industry. Stephen, opposite him, also moves a little, settling his hand onto the table. Something on his finger catches Jared’s eye: a ring. There’s a symbol set in it that Jared swears he’s seen before. But before he can think further, a snore catches his attention.

He turns around in his seat, wondering who has the audacity to actually _snore._ What he sees, though, escapes all comprehension.

Every person in the room is asleep. Every last one, their heads cradled in their own arms and eyes fluttered shut. The woman up the front stops talking. She smiles.

Before he can even demand an explanation, his wrists snap together and his jaw is sealed shut and he’s hurled onto the floor by telekinesis. He writhes, spitting with rage, staring up at Stephen who’s got a hand outstretched and Chad who’s lazily looking on. Stephen’s telekinesis isn’t tailored to things as big as he is, and it becomes evident when Jared manages to pry his jaw open. “What the hell!” he shouts. No one around him stirs.

Chad is tossing Jared over his shoulder now, kicking and screaming, while Stephen looks on, his eyes shining and lips thinned in concentration. “Come on,” the woman snaps, now beside them. She’s got grey hair and foggy eyes, and it strikes Jared with suddenness: a cafe, a lady at the counter. “Keep him quiet.”

“I’m trying,” Stephen grits out. “It’d be so much easier if we could just knock him out.”

She ignores him. Jared realises as they head out a corridor that he had missed the mark right from the start. _Chad_ isn’t the dingy one. He isn’t the runner up, the dog looking for scraps, the one pandering to the older kids. It’s obvious now, in the way that the lady and Chad fall into purposeful step and Stephen hurries behind. He can only wonder what else he got wrong.

When they enter another office, no one cries for help. Jared watches helplessly as the man working in the room slumps in his seat into a deep sleep. The woman steps up to the computer on the desk.

Shouldn’t he be able to shut down their powers? Why can’t he summon that same dampening as he did back in class? He struggles against his invisible bonds, arching for his power that’s just out of reach and slides away every time. If only he could– he could shut this entire farce down!

The door swings open again and Jared’s heart leaps in hope before he recognises the man as the owner of the Samoyed. His hands are sparking with electricity. “We’re clear,” he says.

“Computer won’t let me in,” she replies. “We need to lock this whole place down.”

 _Lightning and Mist,_ Jared realises with horror. _Supervillains_.

The woman looks at Jared as though she’s just heard his thoughts. “Thanks, kid,” she says, walking up to him. Then she whips a knife out from nowhere and opens him up from wrist to elbow and plunges her hand into the mess of an open wound.

He isn’t aware that he’s screaming, nor that his vision’s gone utterly black, only that when he comes to, she’s smiling at him like the devil and the man is lapping up blood from her fingers and the lights have all gone out. The darkness swallows them up whole, greedily. Outside, a storm wreaks through the city, a bolt of lightning flashing through the room all at once and followed by a ground-shaking crash.

“Keep him from bleeding out,” the woman orders Stephen. Stephen’s face seems pallid now in the paleness of the dark, sweat beading on his forehead as he stems Jared’s blood flow. It’s not a long-term solution, Jared thinks hazily. He remembers his paper on telekinesis as a healing art. Cutting off his blood flow means cutting off oxygen. His arm is going to die, shrivel up, fall off.

The people they come across in the corridors are all already asleep now, and the computers buckle easily under their hands. Jared can’t seem to focus on where his feet are going, nor what they’re saying, only Chad who’s carrying him and Stephen who seems to be getting closer by the second, tempted by the draw of Jared’s power-enhancing blood.

The ring on Stephen’s outstretched finger. It reflects the light, a steely shine — a circle on it, a strange mark in the centre.

The moment he places it is like a landslide coming down in his head. That symbol had been on the door of the room to the Eye. The Eye, warning him away–

Must have been a warning not against Jensen, but _Stephen_ , villainous now; but why does Stephen have its mark–?

–he must have gotten it from someone else, must have; who–

–the Eye, unrivalled telekinetic–

– _Jensen (_ because never, once, has Jensen fully left Jared’s thoughts _)–_

–whose wife leapt after him without stopping to think about her child–

–is the greatest telekinetic he knows and an _orphan._

It’s like steel walls slamming down in his head: layers of denial, shock, horror. Wall after wall, they crash down and barricade him away under thousands of tonnes of metal, somewhere cold and dark and deep inside.

He falls and begins to scream at the same instant as the lights explode on and his arm bursts into blood. Noise builds to a crest outside and suddenly people are waking and yelling in the corridors and his kidnappers are running, cursing, bursting out onto a fire escape. Sirens are wailing down the street. Rain is still bucketing down, swirling with his blood, and Jared realises with sudden clarity that _they are going to escape._

Jared twists in Chad’s grip, his fingers closing around that pen in his pocket and he _stabs_ Chad, right in the back of the neck, and it meets only some resistance before it just _pops_ inside, blood rushing to the surface as Chad howls and scrabbles at the weapon. It looks wrong there, jutting out from a hole in his skin and leaving a tangible bulge beneath, but Jared just twists and levers it deeper, teeth gritted and doesn’t even see the fist coming for him before he’s hit and everything whirls.

Metal rattles as he hits the stairs of the fire escape. They can’t let him go. He knows too much. They can’t wipe his memory, their powers—

The hit comes from nowhere again, and he feels those steel walls of his _dent._ He– shit, he– it doesn’t _work_ when he’s _unconscious–_

The next blow splits his mouth open against his teeth and his entire head is ringing with the force that he’s smashed against the floor. He’s scrabbling hopelessly down the stairs, trying to get away, but the man is advancing on him with rage in his eyes.

Then the entire world lurches and he’s tossed to the side— wraps his fingers around the stair he’s on and feels it cut in. He sees Chad, Stephen, the woman, the man– all grab for rail when the _entire fire escape is wrenched away from the building._

Jared stops, or maybe everything else does. He’s just a foot away from tumbling off the edge and onto the street below. Rain falls around him, wind high-pitched in his ears, buildings sheer like cliffs all around him. Police cars fill up the streets and armed officers are rushing into the building, shouting to each other as they crash through puddles like long-legged shadows.

Jensen is down there. He’s standing on the sidewalk, looking up. His eyes are burning. It reminds Jared so strikingly of the one time he saw Jensen standing in that corridor, looking ready to kill.

With a great shriek, the stairs are torn apart and Jared goes tumbling like a leaf lost on the wind. But he never does hit the ground.

 

* * *

 

Softness, is what Jared’s first aware of. Then warmth. Then something uncomfortably bright.

He cracks open his eyes. Barrier at the bottom of the bed. Blue sheets. Chair in the corner of the room, Jensen in it.

Hospital, then. Somehow that’s not too much of a surprise.

“Water,” he croaks. Jensen jerks out of his chair with a look of alarm and is stumbling out of the room the next, calling for a nurse. It seems like he’s back in less than a second, crowding up into Jared’s space and raising the cup to his lips.

Jared drinks. It tastes better than any other drink he’s ever had, including the tea his mother used to make when he was really sick. Jensen watches him expectantly, gaze so unwavering that Jared starts to feel a little uncomfortable. “Your family’s flight arrives tomorrow,” Jensen says, taking the cup from him. “The news is all over it.”

“Oh,” Jared says. He doesn’t really like the idea of the news stations knowing more than he does. Jensen seems to realise this, because he sits down on the edge of the bed and begins to explain almost immediately.

“Chad is–” He stops. Starts again, “He’s the son of the supervillains.”

Jared stares at him, a little bit stunned.

“He said that he and Stephen had been altering my memories for years. I’d–” Jensen pauses again and looks frustrated at his own words. Jared suspects Jensen must’ve prepared some sort of speech and thrown it to the wind almost as soon as he’d started actually talking. “I knew, okay? I knew there had to be something about you. I was _supposed_ to be in love with Stephen, but you...” He swallows, instead, and says, “When you pulled down Chad’s powers, it just all came down. I _heard_ you. I, I _jumped out of my window._ I destroyed an entire building. _You needed me._ ”

Jared’s words have escaped him, but elation seems to be billowing up somewhere behind his ribcage like a balloon.

“They’ve been arrested?” he asks, first. Jensen nods. “Everyone knows my power now?” Again, Jensen nods, a little more tightly this time.

But the most important question: “You–”

“Will you go out with me?” Jensen blurts over him. “My mind’s all delicate right now. It’s. It’s filled up with cobwebs. But you burn so bright. You always have.”

Jensen looks so heartbreakingly earnest and beautiful in that moment that Jared just reaches forwards and takes his hand. He sees Jensen’s chest still — afraid, irrationally, that Jared will pull away — and he only seems to start breathing again when Jared squeezes tightly. Then he smiles, and the rain is all over.

Outside, the sun rises, and the city wakes.

Jared feels the brightened dawn somewhere between his lungs and the middle of his chest.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise illustration! 
> 
> I know brokenhighways didn't ask for a picture as a gift, so I really hope it's adequate and I'm really, really sorry that. um. there was no sex in this. 
> 
> Anyway, happy holidays to you all! Have a good one.


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